End of life for XP - a consequence

Barking and Dagenham switches from Windows XP to Google Chromebooks, saves around £400,000Google has scored a major win on the back of Microsoft's Windows XP support cut-off, as the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has started a major migration project to Chromebooks and Chromeboxes ahead of the 8 April deadline.

The council was previously running 3,500 Windows XP desktops and 800 XP laptops, and is currently in the process of retiring these in favour of around 2,000 Samsung 303Cs Chromebooks and 300 Chromeboxes, mainly for meeting rooms, reception areas and libraries across the borough.

Barking and Dagenham has already rolled out around 350 of these Chromebooks to its staff, and expects to deploy the remaining machines by early June, partly driven by the XP support cut-off date.

It expects to make savings of around £400,000 compared with the cost of upgrading to newer Windows machines, from a combination of the lower hardware costs, lower support costs and more energy-efficient devices.

Rupert Hay-Campbell, ICT and information governance officer at the council, explained that Barking and Dagenham is paying around £200 per Chrome device, compared with £500 to £600 for a Windows laptop and £340 to £350 for a standard Windows desktop. V3 estimates this at a cost of around £460,000 for the new Chrome devices.

£460,000 equals about $760,000 USD -- a nice chunk of change being saved there. The lower power requirements will translate directly into longer battery life.